First video camera

buying my first camera on my own and don’t want to mess up

1) What is your budget? How much money can you spend right away, and do you think you can get more money to invest in the future?

I can spend about 500-600, with the ability to upgrade the camera.

2) What experience do you already have with cameras? Have you ever even used one before? Have you helped your friend out with his camera? Have you owned your own?

I use my moms crappy Nikon to take pictures and have been filming clips on my phone for a few years
2) What gear, if any, do you currently have? (tripod, old camera lenses, mics, etc)
Have a couple lenses that are Nikon brand. Planning to film with friends so I don’t think that a tripod will be super necessary.
4) What are you planning to shoot and how do you want to use your camera? Are you going to use this with the sole purpose of shooting skiing? or do you think you might try other stuff as well (movies, documentaries, short films, etc)

mainly skiing and skating, but I would like something that can take decent pictures because I take senior pictures and stuff occasionally

5) Do you want a camera that you can hand to your friends, that could or could not have film experience, and let them shoot you? or will you be doing all the filming?


I will be doing most of the filming, and my friends have basic camera knowledge, so they could probably use anything that I can use. Maybe not as well but they can get the basics and learn
6) When filming skiing, how do you tend to shoot? (follow cams, leave it on record on a tripod and hike, film from a tripod, etc)
We like a mix of follow cams and still frames, but we have a GoPro we use for follow cams so we don’t break a phone
7) What computer do you currently have/use to edit (if not currently editing, what would you most likely use)? If you can provide specifics, such as hard drive space, RAM, processor size, that would be great.
I have a fairly new Mac that runs photoshop and premier with ease. Not sure about specs on it
7) What program do you currently edit on? How familiar are you with it (1- just learning; 10- I can make tutorials and know the keyboard layout)
6-7 adobe premier pro
3-4 adobe photoshop